The Bitch Posse

High Praise for
The Bitch Posse
and Martha O’Connor

“O’Connor makes an aggressive stand here against so-called chick lit. . . . The result is more in-your-face, reality women’s fiction.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“O’Connor nails the intense, us-against-the-world, overcooked emotion that defines the friendship of teen girls and the druggy delirium of first, sexual love.”

—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“O’Connor paces her book expertly, weaving together the voices of her three narrators to create maximum suspense . . . a riveting and emotionally charged read. No fluff here.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“A disturbing look at teen alienation and the cycle of family dysfunction, as well as the power of friendship and loyalty, told in unflinchingly raw language.”

—
Marin Independent Journal

“Will keep readers glued to the very last page.”

—
Library Journal

“Compulsively readable . . . It’s easy to see
The Bitch Posse
as the descendent of
[The Grounding of Group 6]
and other thrillingly gloomy YA classics.”

—
The Washington Post

“Both bold and detailed.”

—
BookPage

“A debut worthy of Joyce Carol Oates.”

—Edmund White, author of
Fanny: A Fiction

“One of the saddest, funniest, and most original stories about deep emotional connections and the forces that threaten to unravel them.”

—Lori Gottlieb, author of
Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self

“A novel that gets under the skin, a novel that cuts deep.”

—Gayle Brandeis, author of
The Book of Dead Birds

“Astonishing and truly remarkable . . . tough, subtle, tense, authentic, and very beautiful. If this isn’t really Alice Sebold, Donna Tartt, or Barbara Vine writing under a pseudonym, then Martha O’Connor is a huge new talent who is already about as good as it gets.”

—Lee Child, author of
The Enemy

“A nuanced and often disturbing consideration of the assets and liabilities of friendship and loyalty.”

—Katharine Weber, author of
Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, The Music Lesson,
and
The Little Women

“An angsty, serious novel of lost dreams and sexual damage.”

—Marie Claire
(UK)

“Reminiscent of cult movie
Heathers,
it revels in the seedy underbelly of American life.”

—
Glamour
(UK)

“As good a debut as it’s cracked up to be . . . edgy, smart, and sexy, like its heroines.”

—Tatler
(UK)

Martha O’Connor

St. Martin’s Griffin
New York

THE BITCH POSSE
. Copyright © 2005 by Martha O’Connor. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Design by Kathryn Parise

Excerpts from
Memoirs
by Pablo Neruda, translated by Hardie St. Martin. Translation copyright © 1977 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Excerpt from
Passions and Impressions
by Pablo Neruda, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. Translation copyright © 1983 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.

Excerpt from
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
by Pablo Neruda, translated by W. S. Merwin, copyright © 1969 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and by permission of Jonathan Cape / The Random House Group Ltd. (UK, Canada).

Excerpt from
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov copyright © 1955 by Random House, Inc. Reprinted under boundaries of fair use.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

O’Connor, Martha.

The Bitch Posse / by Martha O’Connor.

   p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-33393-5

ISBN-10: 0-312-33393-5

1. Women authors—Fiction. 2. Married women—Fiction. 3. Female friendship—Fiction. 4. Psychiatric hospital patients—Fiction. 5. Secrecy—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3615.C686B58 2005

813’.6—dc22

2004066383

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

For Phil
for believing, for listening
for being you

And for the children
for teaching me so much about love and life

I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
—
Christina Rossetti, “Who Shall Deliver Me?”

I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er:
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d.
—
William Shakespeare,
Macbeth

The
Bitch Posse
 

The Beverage You Are About to Enjoy Is Extremely Hot. Sip Carefully.

You have the right to remain silent Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Professional Driver on Closed Course. Do Not Attempt.

Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics.

You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

Warning: You Have Now Entered a Chick-Lit-Free Zone.

Pass Icy. Chains Required.

Small-Craft Advisory. Sustained Winds of 17-33 Knots.

Mind the Gap.

Want a beach book? Buy yourself some
Bridget Jones.

Want to get off? Your local video store has a wide array of suitable titles. Or try the Internet.

If you want something simple, you’re in the wrong place. This is about revealing secrets, not tits and ass.

Well,
not just tits
and ass.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.

Danger: Riptides and Undertow. Swim at Your Own Risk. HAUNTED FOREST, WITCHES CASTLE, 1 MILE. I’D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU!

Do Not Leave Child Unattended.

Say it aloud:
Screw fairy tales and chick lit and all forms of lying.

Gentles, do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

Ah, just jump in. We dare ya.

March 2003
Mill Valley, California

Rennie’s heart is pounding so hard her chest is going to burst in a minute. She floats her tongue over her lips as her student teacher, Bay, tosses aside the pillow. He knots his hands in her hair, dips down for a kiss, and they fall together onto the bed. Thighs aching, she spreads her legs and wraps her arms around his warm brown back. Each movement presses away her literary agent’s critique of her novel chapters:

Don’t open with a sex scene, Wren. Readers will lose sympathy for your heroine.

She tightens her legs around her lover, grabs his ass.

Fuck me.